What a sweet story. Marilyn, you write beautifully.

Lovely story Marilyn. YOU once said you liked animals more than people....your not alone. ♥

Christmas in Cozumel. Christmas Eve, we went on a night dive around 8pm, got out of the water around 9pm. Fireworks were going off! We sat on the pier watching. Then....wandered into town. We were staying at the Sol Caribe Hotel, next to the beach. The center of the hotel is a glass elevator. The swim up bar had live iguanas. Link My 1st time seeing the underwater Christ statue. He had starfish at his feet. Link There's a sunken plane used in an 007 movie, that the ocean has taken over, about 60' off the beach. Coral tubes you dive into and out of, a maze filled with tiny fish. A wall, my 1st abise, for me, a new diver at the time

We'd seen a very expensive ladies perfume for sale @ the drugstore....out front on a table for $6! I Assumed it was a knock off. The next day a fellow diver exclaimed she'd found her favorite perfume for pennies on the dollar.....ooops.....that was the real thang...? Yep! Then I found opera length pearls, 30", for $10 a strand. I purchased 3! Both our mothers were given a strand and one for ME. I took them to several jewelry stores that said they looked real, felt grainy on the tooth, weighted like pearls...but would charge $60 to x-ray them before they could issue an appraisal. I passed. My mothers name was Pearl....it was a dream of hers to own a strand such as these. (I didn't know that when I purchased them) . I presented them in a satin lined, sueded pearl pouch, that folded up. She was THRILLED! To the moon!.

Later that night we ate dinner at midnight. We had a seafood platter we shared. My first octopus. Like rubber....:0) It was a very memorable trip.

Last night I was taking the trash out. It was 11 pm, and I saw one of the possums that I feed, heading into the barn. It is a new barn that we built....we called it the garage, but it was built for Jody's tools and the tractor is in an attached lean-to...but I feed some cats in there, and also a possum....now, looks like two possums. I had put out food for it earlier....dry cat food, and always yogurt with fruit. I buy those little snack packs of fruit because by topping it with fruit, the cats won't eat it. There was a possum already in there, and she had just finished off the yogurt and most of the cat food, and she made a hasty exit. The other one hid behind a shelf. I refilled the yogurt and topped it with a raw egg and a snack size of mandarin oranges. I know that possum must have thought....this is the best Christmas ever!! ;-)

I was feeding a mama possum last year...she had babies in her pouch, so these are probably two of her babies, grown up, and looking very healthy. Possums have a very short life span...usually not much over a year. I used to rehab wildlife and I have raised literally hundreds of orphan baby possums...I am happy to have these coming every night to be fed.

8 years ago I adopted my fur baby Myben.

The most memorable Christmas for me was the year the Old Lad had commissioned a local artist to paint an almost life sized portrait of a dog of mine that some local had taken the liberty of destroying for me, a couple years before....no, not planned-TMK Scruff was taken away and shot.

Scruff was the first dog that we had as a married couple-the baby at the time(Jesse) was just a year old-(Jesse is now, 43) when Scruff was brought home from the bush the Old Lad was logging in at the time-about a 2 hour drive from where we lived.

The artist had every inch of "Scruffy" looking so real-when I pulled that painting out of the box, it was as if Scruff had come back to life right then and there.

That painting has travelled with me everywhere that I have lived over the past 17+ years.....he still looks as good hanging here as he used to look when he came with me to the barn to milk. :)

Thank you for starting this thread, Marilyn! Love reading the stories!

My most memorable Christmas was a very long time ago! I was only 4 years old, and it was our second Christmas on the farm. We always had our family gifts on Christmas Eve, then Santa came overnight and left toys and such under the tree for me to find on Christmas morning. (I was the youngest by quite a few years.) I had been put to bed after our family gifts, and was sound asleep when my sister, then in her mid teens, was shaking me, to wake me up. She told me to listen, she’d heard sleigh bells outside! And I swear I heard a ‘Ho ho ho’! She said maybe, if we hurried, we could catch Santa! Oh, the excitement in her voice! I can still almost hear it to this day! So we crept quietly (well, maybe not so quietly) down the stairs and opened the door at the foot of the stairs. There in the living room, was our mother, trying to sweep up the big snowy footprints that led from the front door (no fireplace) to the Christmas tree and back out again. She was so upset, fussing about her nice clean floor getting all tracked up with snow! I had barely got to the tree when the front door opened and my Dad came in, panting, all out of breath. “I tried to catch him” he said, “but I couldn’t! Those little reindeer are just too doggoned fast!”

I may have forgotten most of what Santa left for me that year, but I will never forget that Christmas! !

Rusty

I was feeling the same welling of my eyes whilst reading this passage you wrote. It was more than wonderful, it shows your unending capacity for love of people, animals, and the earth. God bless you. Thank you, Marilyn